


U.S. Tour

by Delphi



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Coming of Age, Drama, Established Relationship, F/M, First Time, M/M, Multi, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-07-01
Updated: 2003-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-05 17:56:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fledgling Brotherhood's travels, just after the events of <i>X2</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	U.S. Tour

**Alkali Lake:**

So John has never been too good at thinking these things through.

Case in point: he's six years old when this cop comes to his class to give a speech about strangers and how you're never supposed to talk to one because he might give you candy and take you away from your parents forever, and John figures hey, sweet deal, so he takes the El downtown one afternoon and wanders around until this piece of shit Chevy pulls up beside him and, long story short, little Johnny _doesn't_ end up raped and dumped in a ditch off the freeway, but he doesn't get taken away from his parents either. All he gets for his trouble is a ride to the police station, and a Snickers bar from one of the cops, and the belt once his mom's boyfriend gets him home.

Or how about the time he decided that burning down the house would make a great fifteenth birthday present to himself, only to figure out five minutes too late that setting the fire from the inside was some new kind of stupid. Or how about mouthing off to the judge at his trial. Or telling Mike Driscoll in juvie that he thinks he maybe might be queer.

This isn't even the first time that he's run away from Xavier's. Last July he took off on a Friday with Cyke's credit card and everything he owned in his backpack and spent two days just walking the streets and riding the lines, too scared to fall asleep, before crawling home with his tail between his legs by Sunday night.

These are the things he winds up telling Magneto and Mystique two hours into their flight—everything except the stuff about Mike. He doesn't even really know why, except that they keep listening, and once he starts he just can't stop. And after he's done, all he knows is that there's no backing out of this one, because you just don't tell that kind of shit to strangers.

"Where are we going?" he finally asks once his throat's gone sore. He's looking out the window, down a million miles to the snowy ground.

"To renew some old acquaintances," Magneto says, and Mystique laughs softly from the pilot's seat.

"Feel up for a road trip, Pyro?" she asks over her shoulder.

John reaches inside his pocket and flips open his Zippo. He's running low on lighter fluid, but he flicks it on anyway and tickles the flame between his fingers. The chopper is suddenly full of machine sounds.

_When I was six..._

They're waiting for him. Neither of them are looking his way, but he can feel them waiting just the same. Like maybe if he says no, they're going to push him out of the helicopter. Beat him, rape him, leave him in a storm pipe like strangers do.

Or maybe they'll just send him back to Xavier's.

He has to ask.

"Do you kill people?"

He doesn't look at them either. They're flying over a lake, or maybe the ocean, and it glitters like diamonds. It's getting dark now. It's the kind of question you only ask in the dark.

Magneto hums softly, and then he looks at Mystique, and Mystique looks back at him. They both look at John.

"I suppose," Magneto says, in a voice that sounds gray, "that would depend entirely on one's definition of 'people.'"

John is silent for a moment. He thinks about those cops at Bobby's house. About Bobby's parents and his little shit of a brother. He would have let them burn, all of them, if he hadn't been stopped—because none of them were real, not like him and Bobby and Rogue. Not like that bullet in Logan's head.

"A road trip," he says, glancing at Magneto out of the corner of his eye. He flicks his lighter again. "Sure. Why the hell not?"****

 

**Utah: **

The next morning, a supervillain makes him breakfast.

Magneto calls it brunch, but John has never had brunch in his life, not even when he's rolled out of bed for a bowl of cereal at four in the afternoon. Then again, he's so high-class he never even knew they made hotel rooms with real kitchens in them, and groceries and everything.

Magneto is at the stove, fixing them the mother of all omelets—peppers, mushrooms, onions. Tons of butter. A splash of wine. He's humming softly, looking way too happy just to be cooking. But then John remembers that this guy just busted out of jail, and he thinks about how the only thing he wanted his first day out of juvie was a Big Mac and fries.

His stomach sounds like dog fight when half a dozen eggs' worth flips onto his plate; the best he ever got at Xavier's was pancakes, and that was only on Saturdays. Jubilee always bogarted the blueberry syrup.

"Bon appetit," Magneto say, placing a prissy little orange slice on top.

John could definitely get used to this bad guy stuff.

Magneto sits down across from him. "Your name is St. John." It isn't a question.

It's just the two of them. Mystique was leaving just as he woke up, off to DC dressed as some guy he thinks he might have seen on CNN once. Magneto's got new clothes, but where the hell he got them from is a mystery. John slept in his jeans and sweater, and it looks like that's all he'll be wearing for the foreseeable future.

Shit. It hits him for real that all his stuff is in New York and he's in fucking Salt Lake City. Or at least that's where he figures he is, going by the TV channels. He was beat when they landed last night, and all he remembers is a little landing strip and cramming into the back of a cab with a huge, black, male Mystique.

Fuck. He thinks Magneto might have tucked him in.

"Uhm," he mumbles around his toast and ketchup.

They work fast. There's a folder on the table, open, full of printed copies of his school records. He once broke into Xavier's office to read them. Pages and pages of psychoanalytic bullshit. Johnny does not play well with others.

"Sinjin," Magneto muses.

"Huh?"

Magneto smiles at him, faintly. It's the kind of smile that could really fuck a guy up.

"Sinjin," he says again. "It's a common diminutive of St. John. Has no one ever called you that?"

John shakes his head. It's always been John or Johnny, Kid, Brat, Fuck-up, Faggot. St. John was his grandmother's maiden name, and in the tradition of trailer park dynasties, they saddled him with it.

"No," he says, but he tries to shrug in a way that means he doesn't care if Magneto's the first.

His leg starts jigging under the table. His fingers are itching for his lighter, but whipping it out at the breakfast table's probably not cool. He just keeps thinking about what's probably the one useful thing his mother ever said to him, that summer he was nine and lured home a stray dog he'd found wandering around the neighborhood.

_Can I call him Shredder?_

His mom only shook her head. You only name things you're going to keep.****

 

**Arizona:**

Okay. He's starting to get it.

At first he just chalks it up to how smart Magneto is. He talks like John's ninth grade English teacher. Not the accent, but just the way the words melt in his mouth. Like everything he says tastes good to him, like he knows you're tasting them too.

And just like with Mr. Weber, John's surprised that he doesn't even think about punching Magneto in the mouth. Not even when that smirk gets turned his way, and he says "What?" and just gets smirked at some more.

It sort of sneaks up on him later that he wants Magneto to like him, to respect him, to think he's smart too.

He hits the library in Phoenix while Magneto's out schmoozing some mutant politician, except nobody's supposed to know this guy's a mutant, but John has no clue who the guy is so it doesn't really matter.

He spends the whole afternoon feeding a list into the computer catalogue—all the people Magneto's always going on about. Nietzsche. Marx. Darwin. Turns out Hobbes isn't just a stuffed tiger. He peels the bar codes off _The Basics of Modern Western History_ and _Philosophy for Dummies_ and smuggles them out of the library tucked in his waistband.

That night when Magneto gets in, John makes him some tea and manages not to stutter when he asks him whether he thinks Marx's dialectical history could be, like, applied to Darwin's theory of natural selection, y'know?

Magneto doesn't even blink an eye, just waves his hand and summons a can of soda out the fridge for John, and says yes, he does, but that he would love to hear what John thinks of it.

Around midnight, when they're finally getting ready for bed, Magneto says it's about time that John starts calling him Erik.****

 

**California:**

Mystique meets up with them at LAX, blonde and tan like she's lived here all her life while he and Erik are squinting in the sunshine. It's a real mind-fuck, the sun, like it should be hot but the air conditioning's cranked up to the max. All three of them have some serious hard nipples going on, something he can't help but notice when Mystique gives Erik a hug and a peck on the cheek and then does the same to him, giving his ass a little squeeze for good measure.

She takes a step back to look at him, and then all of a sudden her pretty face crumples right up like she smells something nasty, and John's stomach plummets down to his shoes with the certain knowledge that he's fucked up somehow.

But then she only smirks and gives Erik a slap on the cheek that's more like a caress. "You're still letting him wander the streets in these rags?"

John looks down at himself. He's got on the same outfit he was wearing when they picked him up in the flats. His gift-shop clothes are lame enough that he's mostly been washing this every few days. Honestly, he hasn't thought much about it since he threw out his underwear in San Francisco.

"He looks fine," Erik says, smiling faintly. His eyes meet John's, amused, as if to sigh '_women_'.

John smiles too, but he finds himself picking at the ragged hem of his shirt, thinking about all the stuff he left behind at Xavier's. It's fine enough to go without his clothes and music when he's on the road, but it hits him now and again that they'll probably be settling down somewhere someday, and all he has are the clothes on his back and a couple of airport paperbacks.

Mystique rolls her eyes and pulls a hotel card-key out of her purse. "Here," she says, holding it out for Erik. "I'm taking him shopping. The boy has too much potential to be wasted on K-Mart."

"It's Target, actually," he snarks, and he gets that way-too-happy feeling when Erik laughs and leans down to whisper, "Be strong."

Turns out Erik's not kidding. Shopping with Mystique is...an experience. She's obviously been in the city before, because she zips them around from place to place in a rented Lexus, never stopping at two stores on the same block. She seems to take some sort of perverse glee in dressing him up like a doll, turning him into some chic gay valley boy, shop by shop.

She's his girlfriend at Diesel, his mother at Neiman Marcus, and his twin brother at Hugo Boss so that they can try everything on in half the time. She keeps this last skin for lunch at some trendoid restaurant where the tables are tiny and the coffee cups are huge. She gets three phone numbers while John is eating his twelve-dollar cheeseburger. Two chicks and a guy.

Maybe she's fucking with him, but he has a good time anyway.

And he has to admit, he looks pretty damned good when she's done with him. At first he just wanted copies of his old stuff, but Mystique nixed that early on, and she's the one with the stolen platinum card. Besides, the stuff she gets him looks a lot like the stuff he's always wanted to get if he had the money. Designer jeans, leather jacket—all that punk gear that you've got to pony up serious cash for if you want to look acceptably trashy. She even buys him a suit, one that doesn't make him look like too much of a dork.

They finally call it a day when John falls asleep in the change room waiting for Mystique to exchange a medium turtleneck for a large. He clips the tags and wears the new stuff out of the store. They itch a little, but in a good way, like he's shedding his skin.

When they get back to the hotel, Mystique pesters him into modeling his new clothes all over again. She drags Erik out of the study and sets him up on the couch with a glass of wine, then drapes herself across his lap and whistles when John comes out. Erik looks amused, though whether it's with him or with Mystique, John can't tell. He doesn't ask how much any of it costs, but a couple of times he twirls his finger, making John give him a 360 view.

John finishes the fashion show with his suit, that ginchy 70s number that makes him look like he should be reading off nominees at the music awards. He manages a fly little strut when Erik beckons him over to the couch. His tie is tightened, his collar and jacket straightened.

"Well, well. We'll certainly have to find an occasion for you to wear this," Erik purrs. There's no other word for it. He _purrs_.

Mystique snickers, and John blushes for the first time in as long as he can remember.****

 

**Vermont:**

The occasion comes up within the week. Erik takes him to the opera in Montpellier, something called _La Bohème._

At first he figures Erik's just looking for a driver. Mystique's back in DC for the next few days, and they've got this sweet rental BMW that John can't get enough of driving. But then, all the way to the concert hall, Erik keeps going on about how he saw this in Vienna when he was John's age, and how much he loved it, and how he hopes John will love it too.

It sucks as much as John expects it to, at first. He's the youngest person in the whole place; Erik has to keep his hand on John's back to keep him from getting lost in a crowd of walkers and Old Spice on the way to their private box. He wonders if Erik can get tickets like this to a Hawks game.

The whole thing's in Italian, he finds out soon enough, and he has a feeling that even if it was in English he still wouldn't be able to make out a word of it. He's flipping through the playbook, trying to figure out what the hell's going on, when Erik scoots his chair right up next to his. His arm comes around the back of John's chair, and he starts translating for him.

He doesn't hear half of what Erik's saying, but he nods along anyway, and when he leans his head back a little, it rests against Erik's elbow. He has goosebumps on his neck for two solid hours.

On the drive back, Erik asks him how he liked it.

"I loved it," John says without hesitation. "It was cool."

He glances at Erik out of the corner of his eye and finds the passing headlights lighting up his smile.

When they get back to the hotel, Erik retreats into his bedroom, and John goes into the bathroom and runs the water. He jerks off twice in a row, thinking about Erik. Erik's voice. Erik's mouth. He imagines getting down on his knees and sucking Erik off in the opera box. He imagines getting fucked on the floor of the box while all the ants below watch the stage.****

 

**Colorado:**

He sets the couch on fire in Denver.

Mystique and Erik come running out of the bedroom when the smoke alarm starts screaming, and the sound of their bed creaking finally fucking stops.

It's a small fire. Just the pillow, and it's out before Erik turns off the sprinkler and stops the alarm with a wave of his hand. John lets the lighter fall. It hits the carpet and bounces.

"It was an accident," he says.

Mystique shifts to blue and naked and touches his cheek, pulling him away from the smoldering foldout. "Don't worry about it, kiddo."

Erik is tying a sheet around his waist. "Accidents happen," he murmurs distractedly.

John can't meet his eyes.

They've got a new room within half an hour, and John lies down on an identical couch, and Mystique makes him a cup of warm coffee creamer and some kind of liquor before going into the room that's meant to be hers. He wants to hate her, but he can't.

It's only as he's falling asleep that he thinks about what Erik and Mystique had been doing—and what she looked like when she first came running out of Erik's room. Short hair. Flat chest. Skinny hips. And one hell of a dick.

When he wakes up in the morning, he finds his lighter sitting on the coffee table. He doesn't know if he's relieved when Mystique's packing her things. Part of him is almost scared to be left alone with Erik, because Erik's got to know that he was listening to them last night.

"Sorry," he mutters, right after she's kissed Erik right in front of him.

She arches a blue scale.

"For last night," he says, and he feels Erik's gaze shift onto him like a magnet.

"Forgiven," Mystique says, and she kisses him too.****

 

**Georgia:**

From then on, Erik starts watching him get ready for bed, like he thinks he's going to burn down the hotel.

Richmond, Montgomery, Raleigh. Every night he's there until John counts to thirty. Then he sighs and goes to bed himself, closing the door softly behind him.

Except that their third night in Atlanta, he doesn't.

It's hot and sticky, and Erik's still there in the doorway when John counts to ten, twenty, one hundred. He can hear him breathing soft and quiet, and there's a softer sound there too, like maybe Erik's robe is rubbing against whatever he's wearing underneath.

It makes him restless, that sound, and so does the feel of Erik's eyes on him in the dark. It makes that good, sick feeling start trickling in his belly. He's chilled all of a sudden, his skin prickling all over like when he just has to burn something.

The floor creaks, and he breathes out softly. But those soft footsteps aren't leaving him, they're coming closer. The mattress dips as Erik sits down behind him. Warm fingers brush his cheek.

"Shh, don't get up." Erik knows he's awake. "Don't get up."

He squints open his eyes. "S'everything all right?"

Erik strokes his hair. "Everything is fine," he says quietly, and John is suddenly glad that he's lying on his side, because that voice makes him hard. Erik's hand smells spicy. He's going to remember that when he jerks off tomorrow.

Gentle fingernails scrape deliciously over his scalp.

Fuck tomorrow. Make that tonight.

The weight behind him shifts, and he feels a warmth spread all along his back. His breath halts in his throat. What is...his dick catches on before his brain does, twitching frantically at the realization that Erik is stretching out behind him.

Erik's touch slips down over his throat, up over his face, brushing gently against his cheek. "Sinjin," he says quietly, and John knows that's his rhetorical tone, the one he uses when John is meant to shut up and listen.

"This is your bed," Erik says, his fingers creeping up along John's jaw. John holds himself so still he can hear his own heartbeat, every little creak in his joints. "This is your room, and you may ask me to leave it at any time." He brushes over John's lips, making him shiver. "But I very much hope you won't."

John swallows hard over the hot lump in his throat. This isn't happening. It can't be. It feels too good.

"Sinjin," Erik says again, like he's letting it melt on his tongue, and John tries to answer, but his mouth is dry as dust and all he can do is lean back until his body is right up against Erik's.

He feels Erik sigh, and then the sheet is being pulled down around his thighs. He starts to turn over, but Erik's arm comes around his waist, holding him firm, not letting him go.

He nearly comes right then and there.

"It's all right," Erik murmurs. "I know what you want."

Hot breath fogs in John's ear, and then Erik's hand is splayed across his chest. Cool fingertips flick over his nipple, and his dick twitches so hard he swears he can hear it. He can't help but curl into himself, and as his hips slide back, he feels that Erik's hard too.

It's not like he imagined. Sex (oh fuck, this is going to be _sex_). Hands on his waist, his stomach, his arms. The pulse hammers in his throat, blood pounding in his dick.

"God," he whispers. His body feels soft and awkward under Erik's hands, like Erik's got him on strings, like he's made of liquid metal.

His boxers are tugged down, and as he wiggles out of them, the mattress rocks to and fro behind him. And then he feels Erik naked against him.

He makes this pathetic choking noise. "Please?"

He doesn't even know what the fuck he's asking for. Keep touching him, yeah, fuck him, sucking, oh God, yes...he's been thinking about sucking Erik off for forever, and now he knows what those hands feel like in his hair.

His leg is lifted, effortlessly it seems, and for a second he freaks, thinking maybe Erik doesn't know he's kind of a virgin and he's just going to fuck him like this without getting him ready. But then Erik lets his legs close, and he feels it, hot in between his thighs, rubbing up just under his balls, and he shakes helplessly.

Erik licks at his neck. "Shh, my dear, dear boy." Hot words against the cool wetness on his skin.

And then Erik's hand closes around his dick and strokes him as they both start rocking back and forth, and he never thought that there could be any feeling better than jerking off, but this feels better than wildfire. This is too real to be a dream, the smell and the sweat, and his panting breaths and that low grunting sound Erik's making, thrusting harder now, his balls gently slapping against John's thighs.

Something kindles inside of him. He wants to burn the whole world down. He wants to be on fire, and if he was, he still wouldn't be able to stop his hips from moving, his back from arching and oh motherfuck, he's coming, he's coming...

He looks down, and he's coming on the bed and on himself, and he's coming on Erik's hand, and not long after, Erik's coming too, spattering him, wrapping him up in a bruising hold.

Then quiet.

John doesn't dare move. Erik's dick is still between his thighs, warm and wet, and he thinks that as long as he keeps his legs together, Erik isn't going anywhere.

But then Erik moves anyway, disentangling himself. For the first time in a long while, John feels cold. Erik holds him down with one firm hand on his shoulder, bending over him. His face is calm and...kind? Or maybe smug.

Erik kisses his forehead, his cheek, the tip of his nose. John licks his lips, and Erik kisses those too. "That was wonderful, my dear," Erik tells him, and John nods. He closes his eyes and feels the mattress sway.

But Erik's not going. Erik's still there.****

 

**Hawaii:**

His mom always wanted to go to Maui. That's where people always went for vacation on the soaps, and they never showed it, but everyone knew it was beaches and palm trees and the chicks with those flower things. Rich people go to Hawaii. The Brady Bunch went to Hawaii.

He'd be tempted to write to her if he knew where she moved after the fire. They're staying in the best hotel on the island, and the stationery's got gold around the edges. Maybe a postcard, because it really is more than palm trees after all.

Mystique was waiting for them when their plane landed. He was happy to see her, kind of, even when he went to bed alone on the pullout the first night and listened to the quiet murmur of their voices from Erik's room. There were no fucking-sounds, or none that he could hear, but it was nearly two a.m. when Mystique came out.

She stopped by his bed while he shut his eyes tight and pretended to sleep. He could feel the warmth of her body when she leaned down over him, and for a moment he was tempted to open his eyes and see what skin she was wearing.

"Sweet dreams, kiddo," she said.

Now he's sitting out on the balcony with a cold bottle of beer, six weeks into what he's dubbed the Evil Mutant U.S. Tour, flipping stations on the radio and watching a black-haired, dark-skinned Mystique sunning herself by the pool below. He can hear Erik moving around the suite behind him, packing up, getting ready for their next stop. They've only been using one bed in the suite ever since their second night here, the three of them.

Yeah. Maybe even John can't screw this thing up.

"Where to?" he asks, just for the hell of it.

Erik comes up behind him and strokes his neck, and John can tell from his breathing that he's looking down at Mystique all hot and oily and gorgeous. Erik's breath is warm against his cheek.

"Home, my dear Sinjin," he says. "We're going home."


End file.
